Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast. The show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over one million and annual revenue. I’m your host, Brandon Pierpont, founder of painter marketing pros and creator of the popular Pc, a educational series, learn do grow marketing for painters in each episode, I’ll be sharing proven tips, strategies and processes from leading experts in the industry on how they found success in their painting business. We will be interviewing owners of the most successful painting companies in north America and learning from their experiences what is going on.
Everyone welcome to the P. C. A. Expo 13003 game plan Part two. Super excited for this. This is the second part of a two part series about how to craft the ultimate game plan for your painting company to make sure that this expo experience is the most impactful for your company and your life possible. We have Maggie Kipper of Heart with painting. She is the co chair of the expo educational committee. She was on episode one, she was rejoining us Maggie, thank you for thank you for being here again.
It was. I put her through the ring in the first time. She came back for a second time. So Maggie is an all star. We have juan Vasquez juan is a killer illusions, painting absolute rock star many of you know who he is. He’s become a very big advocate for the P. C. A. For the Hispanic community and bringing a lot of people educated, a lot of people who didn’t really feel like they belonged before. I didn’t really understand well enough. He’s exposing and really spreading the message and the word out there.
We have Chris. Elliott. Chris is the chair of the P. C. A. Marketing committee so you can pretty much blame him if you have anything that you don’t like him and Maggie him and or Maggie. Although there is this other co chair of the of the expo educational committee which I still don’t know who that is. So I just blame everything on that person. But chris runs on it painting. And then we have Hayley Hayley runs marketing actually at the P. C. A. So she is is running the behind the scenes at the actual pc doing our marketing.
So we have an all star group here um For the second episode of the two part series. And again the first episode was what is expo, going through it, how to register the hotels. A lot of the more generic stuff. The second one is gonna be a much deeper dive into the actual sessions at this year’s event. What does it mean? And if there are three sessions at once how do you actually choose between competing alternatives? So Maggie, I’m going to let you kind of kick us off in general.
I know this idea of theme by day wasn’t necessarily something that was done at every single expo. So I’d love to start there. Well we wanted to theme it really fun like on it, painting does at their shows, but Jason wouldn’t let us, so we had to stick with Jason right? I know he’s no fun guy, it’s like he does our industry. It’s weird. Yeah, I was going to lean into chris Elliott and they’re cool costumes, but instead we went with like more of a, I don’t know, you know, like an education pedagogical technique.
Um because the big feedback that everyone gave was that they always felt like they left expo like they were drinking from a firehose, you would go to these classes and then go to the next class in the next class and it was just you were getting pummeled left and right with information, which is amazing and awesome, but also sometimes hard to stomach, so more organ. My fellow co chair, Is it more, Oh my goodness, rain down a storm so far. Should have never told me. It was easier when I just didn’t know she and I thought, you know, if we at least try to wrap some general themes around each day, the participants who felt like they were drinking from a firehose at least day one, you’re drinking from the marketing firehose.
Ok, So a few tweaks and the schedule happened due to travel issues for some of our speakers, but 95% are on theme. Um so day one has an emphasis on marketing. Um all the speakers kind of Lean into how to bring in Leeds, how to get jobs, how to brand your business. Um kind of the nuts and bolts of getting work. Day two, we thought it’s a half day, we’ve got the awesome expo um, exhibitor stuff in the afternoon, so we do a little bit lighter and kind of dig into leadership and the role of the business owner or the role of people within the company and then the last day, um when everybody’s really tired after the evening parties.
Yeah, and we had too much food and too much fun friday is about operations, so the nuts and bolts, so you know, the marketing helped you get in leeds or get in um new recruits. Um you kind of reflect a little bit on yourself as the leader thursday and then friday is more about all right, what are we going to implement? What are the nuts and bolts to get production? Um and just to get our systems ironed out. That’s great. And did we, it wasn’t structured like this last year. Right.
No. Okay. Right. My understanding, we haven’t done this before, but um that’s only if you like it, if you don’t like it, then it was done this way like 15 years ago. It’s, you know, it’s funny, it’s good, it’s good actually that we are doing this because so we sat down with that we’re bringing a couple of guys, you know from our team, this is the first time that we’re actually taking three of our guys, so it’s actually really great because they’re like okay what are we supposed to do?
So now we’re able to tell them, okay, this is what you’re expecting. So I think that’s awesome. That is awesome, structured. It’ll be structured, drinking from a fire host. It will actually help contain it a lot because then if if you go, you know, if it’s all marketing and let’s say there’s a social media session on breakout session feels just incredibly overwhelming, overwhelmed with all the different options. Should you be doing them all? Should you be trying to dominate one platform? We can go to that and there’s something else, let’s say email marketing, that’ll be kind of an easier call.
Whereas if you’re having to choose between, let’s say social media management and you feel really overwhelmed there. But then there’s also some sort of thing about leadership at the same time that’s a, it’s a tougher. I think it’s gonna be easier to make those judgment calls about what to pass on and what to go to when it’s when it’s in the same theme generally. Yeah, Yeah. And the team did a really good job of really trying to diversify within that. So within marketing, you know, the topics range really extensively.
So it’s not just your typical marketing ideas and your typical operations idea. So thankfully, yeah, um there will be a lot of you can really lean into your needs specifically. Yeah so that will be that will be a big part of what we’re gonna talk about today is actually kind of diving in day by day. The sessions we’re gonna include a link for everyone who’s watching. So you can actually go on check it out, check out the names of all the breakout sessions, check out the topics of all the brain cells.
But before we dive into that we did want to plug the paint it forward. So Hayley Maggie chris I’m gonna let one of you guys whoever wants to sort of take the lead on plug in, what’s happening here um With this paint it forward event. Yeah I can do that. Um So new this year at expo we’re doing a painted board event partnering with the city of Albuquerque. And so P. C. A. Will be painting the interior of the Gibson Medical Help which used to be an old hospital but um kind of deteriorated over time.
So um now it’s being revamped into this like medical center a hub for people who are experiencing homelessness. How many people do we have registered for that? I want to say the latest is about 75 heard but um we’re hoping to reach over 100. So if you haven’t had a chance to register for expo yet then when you register you can check a box to paint it forward if you already registered and you still want to participate and paint it forward then you can just shoot us an email at support at P. C. A painted dot com support at P. C. A paint dot com one.
Are you guys going to that paying for it? Yes we are. So we’re I was just listening to the first game plan one, right? And we’re thinking about like okay what are we gonna where do we go dressed as cleaners or what are you wearing? Yeah chris what are you wearing this casuals? Yeah. No overall not like I’ll wear a white quarter zip. Okay that’s why we’re that’s our discussion right now to that white quarter zip I would say if you plan to paint then show up dressed like a painter.
But if not then um you know the white shirt could be a souvenir, get some paint on it and wear it later. Okay. So you said white shirt? So do we get a white shirt from the event? Not that I know of. Okay. So, Hayley, I know, I know we might not be doing this. Are we doing the mini social media kit? Yeah. Yeah. So um yeah so we have um like a small package of graphics and um a web badge that will go out to everybody who registers for paying it forward at expo then you’ll receive it so that you can promote on your social media pages and let everybody know what you’re doing for the community and you can put it on your website as well.
It’s awesome. So yeah, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re approaching it and it’s a sacrifice, it’s a time sacrifice. It’s a financial sacrifice to fly across the country, leave your painting company. If you’re bringing members of your crew, obviously that amplifies that sacrifice. Uh and then coming a day early adds something to it, right? Logistically you’re gone for longer. So it’s, it’s obviously a good cause it’s gonna be a great sense of community. You know, everyone’s gonna kinda kinda think about almost like a, like a pre networking session, I guess mingling with everyone the day before the event officially starts.
But you’re also gonna get this really awesome social media kit to broadcast what you’re painting companies doing. So the philanthropic side of your business, you can promote it in your local community. Pc is going to provide you these graphics, you can easily customize, put your logo on them and then, and then push them out. You can even push them to local news stations, put them on your website, put on your social media and people can see that, that you’re giving back. You’re contributing resources. Obviously I can help business growth as well.
So the plan, Hayley, if if someone’s arriving later on Tuesday, uh would the best approach to participate, just email the support at pc a pc a paint ed dot org. Yeah, I think that’s fine and we can make like, special arrangements on a case by case basis. Um We can definitely release like the address. Um As long as I get on that list then they’ll receive all the email communications about where to go, when to show up how like transportation is being organized like that. Uh, loosely what are the event times for the?
Yeah, I believe that shuttles are starting in the morning either at seven or 7 30 but please don’t quote me on that. It’s still being finalized. Um and then I’m not sure what the official kickoff time is going to be. It really depends on how many total registrants we have and then what time transportation can begin and what time can we get everybody you know from the hotel, the various hotel sites to the paint afford event. Nice. And I’m assuming all like are prepping material and stuff will be provided there. Right?
I don’t have to carry my roller and my putty knife and that stuff. Right? So all the logistical details are going to be released. I don’t have any information on that. But I know that it’s all in the works so I hesitate to give you like any advice in that regard right now. Sorry. That’s just for me. You know what? Yeah. No, I wish that I could but as soon as it’s it’s mapped out. As long as you’re on the email list then you’ll receive all of that information juan.
Don’t you always travel with a putty knife. I I used to Before Expo 2018. Yeah. So you guys if you if you go to. com for slash Facebook you can provide um you can give stream yard ability to access your name because right now we just see facebook users, but it doesn’t make it kind of more entertaining to me. Someone’s gonna follow Chris Elliott around fixing all of his painting mistakes that Chris Elliott acknowledges he’s not a painter so that you should have you should have your hands full probably on that one of my best.
Yeah, directing the orchestra. Orchestra. Right? I like that isn’t your talk about right person, right seat. I mean that’s basically lead by example. Right? So let’s talk about the app the expo app and and how that can be used to enhance the experience. Yeah. So the expo app, you can download it either on the app store or google play by searching pc expo. So it’s going to let you go in to map out like your own education experience. So when talking about like the competing sessions like there are a couple at the same time and maybe you’re not sure which one you want to go to.
Then you can map out your personal journey through expo and make a plan in that regard. Um There’ll be a game two this year. So the expo game is coming back and um the grand prize will be free all access pass to expo. 2024. That’s a nice surprise. What is the game, what is the game like? So the game is going to there’s two components of it. Um We’re going to have a daily riddle but that is for like gift cards and um not connected to the grand prize of the all access pass to expo.
Um But the regular like call it Gamification is um like a series of trivia questions so some will be about expo this year. Um Some are historical questions and some are like general like P. C. A. Questions. This Gamification. Is this some sort of fancy marketing term that you that you’re doing here? Yeah I think it’s been it’s been in play long before I was here. Yes but that’s what it’s called. Yeah. Alright cool. Um Yeah the expo app will be awesome. Super helpful. Help you chart the course here.
I do wanna I do wanna plug something that I think I think is the first time that that’s ever happening at expo this year. Is that all of the breakout sessions are being recorded? So every single breakout session is being recorded and if you come you all you still have to choose if there are three at the same time you can’t sit in three rooms unless you have clones. I don’t I want to but you can’t sit in all three rooms at the same time. So you have to choose.
But then you’ll actually get the recording of the ones that you missed if you come. So that’s gonna be available to all the attendees. Haley. Is that is that accurate? That’s pretty huge. There’s still there’s still a trade off because you can’t ask the questions, you can’t be there live so you still have to decide which one is the most valuable. But the fact that you can then you basically get like 200% more content now because you can take the rest of the breakout sessions with you and there’s usually three at the same time I believe.
That’s cool. Um So that is a first, it would be great because then we don’t have to be with our phone right? Because I remember recording the parts with back to my phone. Yeah, I can’t write so I have to record it so I can see it again. Yeah man. Yeah that’s huge. So then if you think about it, you’re drinking from this fire hose but yet you’re actually only consuming about a third of the content. So you’re overwhelmed with a third of it. Well now that third that you consumed, you’re actually gonna be able to take home and consume it again.
So you can kind of work through it at your pace over the following 1003 12 months and you can also actually capitalize on the other sessions that you missed. So you’ll get a lot more content. But but it will be, it will be more easily digestible because you can, you can consume it at your own pace in your own time. So that’s really exciting for this year. Um and then I want to touch on again, maybe, maybe Hayley, maybe Maggie, I don’t know who wants to take this, but this fix my business panel I think is a really cool thing who wants to take that?
I will um yeah, this is something we’re super excited for in the um the ability to sign up to put your name in the hat is still going on, but we’re going to have two different fix. My business panels, one focused on residential and one focused on commercial and we have a panel of experts within that realm that are going to sit and a contractor is gonna be able to offer struggles in their business questions that they have and it’s basically an opportunity for a coaching session from these experts.
So on the commercial and we’ll have more than one contractor, so the contract will get about 15, 20 minutes of undivided time with those experts and then we’ll move on to the next one. Um the commercial panel is going to be led by breakthrough academy and has Gina Cowart Calvin pay and bill curtain, they’ll all just huge hitters in the commercial industry and the best guy on that panel is matt Kiper from harper signing the residential and that’s a totally unbiased notice, I didn’t list him as a heavy hitter?
I just I said that’s the best guy, he might not be the heaviest, he’s a great guy, he’s a great best best haircut as well, you’ll see it, you know, on a few other guys at expo it’s crazy, handsome devil, um and then on the residential focused panel, um we have Andrew Dwyer from a p a P C magazine as the moderator, um Hiba, Neil Ryan, Davis, Tai Anderson and Jeff Raleigh are all on the panel, so that one is a heavy group of coaches and thought leaders in the service industry, super excited, That’s a no brainer to me.
If I wasn’t in charge of this, I would sign up my company in a heartbeat to sit on one of these panels and just get focused, individualized help for your company. So is this like something that fills out speedos, like no other? Um I wonder who they’re talking about there. So is this, is this uh yeah, is this basically the contractor that they’re working with is essentially going to go onto the stage and talk about their business, and then there is almost like, I guess the opposite of being roasted, it’s like what’s screwed up with your business?
Yeah, but we’re gonna help you fix it on roast? Absolutely roast is the wrong term because it’s going to be helpful? Yes, yeah, supportive and helpful and and there will be, is this an hour, is it two hours? How many, how many companies are going to go through this? We’re hoping we can fit in three on each one. So they’ll get about 15, 20 minutes of undivided attention, which is a lot of time. It’s a lot. Yeah, and it will be a room of probably like 100 people or something.
Yeah, and we all know, well I’m the youngest in my family and I always thought learning was easier by watching my brother and what he did right and wrong and then I’d either mimic or not right, so it’s gonna be a huge benefit to the audience as well because you know, you’re gonna get to hear someone with a similar struggle or a different angle to a struggle or they’re having a struggle that you haven’t even experienced that’s in your future. Um So to get to learn from other people as they share their vulnerabilities and their journeys is just going to be super cool.
How can people apply for that to be one of those companies? Haley, I don’t know if you know the answer, There was an email that went out, but I don’t know anything beyond that. Yeah. Yeah. So um I just sent a message um like here in the chat but there’s a google form that is on our facebook page attached to the fix my business graphics. Um so just fill out the google form and and you’ll be in the running, so we’ll be contacting everyone if you apply, you should hear from us and um also if you do happen to apply, make sure that you attend the panel as well um or let us know, you know that you don’t want to be be considered anymore or something like that, so don’t boycott it, if you don’t get selected, should still go, Okay, cool, is this the first time that this is happening?
Has this been done before? Yeah, I don’t think so. I think this is the first. I love this. I don’t think I’ve seen this one. I mean I’ve been for a few but I haven’t seen this fun. Very interactive. Yeah, fixing it, seeing things in real time. Kind of how the sausage is made. We always get the before and after. My business is so great. I used to be doing this, but we can actually see, I mean, wouldn’t that be neat if there were a company up there and let’s say there are like 750,000, and then they go through the stuff they come back and they’re like two million next year.
That would be awesome. It happened, watch it does happen, it’s happened to everybody in the screen. Well maybe not Haley, but um awesome. Yeah. One I would love, I I know I said we’re gonna get gonna get really deep into it and we are but your story is just an awesome one, you know, I talked with you and Jose you guys came on the podcast. Um and I learned how expo, how, How instrumental it was really in your growth. And I would love to just get a quick recap of what of what I think was 2,313, kind of what happened there and, and uh you know, for people who are maybe thinking about comin maybe they’ve, they’ve even already come before, if you could maybe kind of highlight what changed and how it changed, they could, they could approach this expert with that same open mind that you had.
Oh man! I mean, I’m actually, it’s so excited to hear all these different things because now it feels well, I guess now because I can understand it better, I can see that’s a little more organized, but it was organized when I went, I just didn’t know in my mind wasn’t organized. So right, Exactly. So Jose and I, my business partner went to Galveston’s on in 2018 and um we’re a company that we were probably making, we were in the, we were merging into a business together and we were probably about $400,000.
And yeah, 400,000. And we started walking into these rooms, it was like a million dollars, this million dollar, that and we’re like, whoa, like this is not for us, like we don’t belong here. Um but overall I think is going in with with the mindset of like just trying to pick one thing if you can learn and right now this is so important. That’s why I thank you so much for having me here is because we can explain that if you can go in there and just do you have a need in your business?
If you have one need try to focus on that to try to focus on one need that you have um the last three years for us. Uh Like I said when when you guys mentioned that when you come back from the From the expo and you do change your business, we change our business. I’ve been in business since 2005. So from 2018 to now I’ve never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be doing what I’m doing now and this goes back to the P. C. A. This goes back to uh Josh Abramson Abramson, the guy from paying it forward so I’m just pleased.
And we’re bringing actually a few more guys from California, we invited a few guys so they’re actually going for the first time. Really great companies. Um And we actually been pushing them almost every day. Like come on man, you gotta go, you gotta go you know how they decided to go? I showed them some of the pictures of the parties that we have like like man that’s what sold them. So I’m like man it’s just it’s just an incredible experience. Um I know Jason kept saying like, this is not A P and L. This is not A P N. L. Some of us sometimes at that point we don’t even know what A P. And L is, right?
I didn’t know. But it is true. It’s a very small investment that if you do, and if you work, if it doesn’t work out for you fine, you took a nice vacation, you went somewhere new, and that’s that. But I’ll tell you, I’ll tell anyone who’s listening. If you go, you will not regret it. I remember Jose he really didn’t didn’t want to come. He was really, you guys talked about that a lot in the podcast a lot. How did you end up convincing him? What was that situation like?
Um you know, the thing about us is it’s been really great with our business because I’m the dreamer and I’m the one that’s like, I’ll find something, I’m like, we’re gonna do this. And then I go to him and he’s like, you crazy man, Yeah, he goes, but you know what, let’s make it happen, it’s a good partnership, right going bankrupt necessarily, and you kind of keep pushing him forward. You know what’s great, Like, he does not know nothing about the business side. He goes like, let me innovate, let me create, let me do everything else.
He goes, you take care of the bills. I’m like, perfect. You know, So that’s what we did when we went to our first uh expo, like I said, he had just gone on his own and he was struggling because he lost like five jobs. He had no money, I was broke. So I said, hey, you know what, let’s put it on a credit card. And he goes, well, no, cause he goes, we don’t have any money. I’m like, well, you know what, don’t worry about it, we’ll put it on a credit card and we did first.
I think it’s one of our first spencer’s on our american express. But you know, he will tell you and I think, you know, he’s told you before, like it’s the best thing we’ve done so far in our business, man. Yeah, I love it. Someone, someone commented, I agree. I’ve never met anyone that’s attended at PC expo and said it wasn’t worth it. It’s only getting better every time with these titans taking the wheel and it is because if you guys noticed there is, I’ve took on, I took on this uh question, I’ve been going to different states the last year and so many people out there have no clue they want to better their business, but they just don’t know how and so that one of the reasons why I started doing what I’m doing is because there’s a lot of Hispanic community out there who, who really would love to, but because of our background, because of our, you know, um how can I say this?
Yeah, mainly our background, we are not, we don’t look for ways we just like whatever we have here, that’s all. And so that’s what we’ve been promoting, there are a lot of things out there that will help your business in spanish of course, for when we have the, you know, the language barrier. Yeah, and you said that you went in and you you focus on one thing because obviously the whole, the whole idea behind this two episode series was that people get overwhelmed a little bit and it can become paralysis by analysis.
We want to break that down, but you went into it with one thing that you wanted to achieve, what was that one thing and what would you recommend? How would you recommend other people think about attending? Kind of select their one thing. So I mean last year, basically what we did is um we were having issues with the shortage of manpower, you know, the year before and we had too many guys and it just wasn’t working. So last year when we went to florida to Orlando, um we were with the mindset of finding more about doing stuff contracting and that’s what we focused on the whole the whole time, of course everything else, but we were focused on that now we came back this whole year, we have two new subs our model is probably about almost 40% of our work is into subs now, and that’s from just picking one thing out of the, You know, out of the PC eight, and that’s what we focus on, and we’ve got a lot of good insight that you will never get with the book or anything else.
Just people telling you directly how it works for them. So did you find when, when you said people telling you directly, did you find the networking that talking with other contractors that that was almost maybe more beneficial to you in the sessions, or what do you mean by that? Oh yes, yes. I mean you guys talked about it here, you’ll come up with some, you know, you’ll come up to someone and you’ll start talking about just whatever random thing is, and then you start focusing into what you want to talk about.
There are a lot of guys out there like um um I just don’t want to mention names right now, but there are a lot of guys out there who really will sit there and tell you, okay, what are you doing so far? And like, oh this is what I’m doing? Like why do you do that? And I’m like, well, because this is what I think, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? They’ll recommend a book, they’ll recommend something and you’re like, oh God, I never thought of that, and it’s just that simple conversation that you just really click something in your mind and you’re like, oh God, I probably had this all along.
I just needed that the extra push or the personalized conversation, you know? Yeah, that’s huge. I like that concept that you probably had it too along. Like, like a lot of times, I don’t think we’re as far away from the success we want as we think that we are, we realize like it’s a few tweaks, it’s kinda okay, work on, not, not in the business. What does that really mean? Talking with people can kind of help, help you make that leap that can show you what it means and that doesn’t mean all of a sudden money doesn’t matter to you or you made so much money, you can just hire a bunch of people.
It doesn’t have to be this magical unicorn that can actually show you how to make those transitions, These small tweaks that make huge leaps off your business. Yeah, so I want to transition now. It’s the Magi show. So we were talking about before we started Maggie’s gonna basically just run this thing um because again, she she is fully responsible for everything. So 50% 503% 100% 100% 50% responsible. So she is going to let’s dive deeper into these into what’s actually being covered. So, so like, let’s start day by day and he said Wednesday um day one is gonna be marketing.
So let’s actually kinda, let’s actually talk about some of the breakout sessions, even the time slots. And if people have questions about what what those sessions might entail or okay, if I if I’m going into it, focus on subcontracting for example and then there are three different options. I just want to give people a great um way to kind of navigate how they’re going to approach this expo because again it is, it can be overwhelming so maybe we can just go through the subject matter um session by session if that works for you works for me.
So yeah. Oh man. Um so Wednesday, like we said is marketing. Um if you’ve never been to expo every day, starts with breakfast, which is the most important thing and I’d like to just get back, that’s what they teach kids right? I want to piggyback on what juan said to which is, you know, you’ll see on the schedule, a lot of downtime meals, um snack breaks etcetera. And uh you need to just go into this knowing that that’s really just an extension for more social time and more meeting people.
Um Our first expo, we’ve, we greatly failed at realizing that until halfway through and we kind of stuck to ourselves went back to our rooms during breaks, we didn’t really realize the breadth of knowledge that’s exchanged at that time. So go to everything every meal, every break, all of it especially, right? Yeah, that’s a no brainer. I’ll let you boys talk friday is going to be the least productive day ever. It’s only operations right. You need to worry about all that. I mean we should just make it marketing and then they could just, yeah you go do what?
I think we make the switch. I thursday night. I know I think nick Slavic has the kick off at like nine o’clock friday morning. I don’t think he’s very happy with me. I had to put a ringer there man, give up, he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, he’s gonna be fine. So Wednesday’s marketing. Um we’re going to kick off after breakfast. There will be an opening session. You’ll get to hear from the P. C. A. Um kind of just kick off the event, learn more about what the Pc is doing and then we break off into our first of two breakout sessions for the day.
Each breakout session has three sessions. Excuse me, four sessions in it. Um there’s four different breakout rooms. So every time we go into breakouts there’s four options. Um The first option on Wednesday is going to be a panel discussion on brand awareness and social media. So we’ve got a cool panel. Was that Kenny Garrett martel, Corey lister and Austin Hauser so super um differentiated group of people and how they approach social media. If you follow that Kenny, his social media is very different than Corey listers but both of them are using it very strategically to grow their companies and to target their ideal customers.
So I’m excited to hear about that. There’s a breakout session with Brandon Lewis about hitting 215% cash flow even during recession. And then a break out with Tom Rieber who doesn’t like Tom River is going to talk about not wasting time on the wrong prospect, so making sure that you’re getting the right people in your queue in your marketing funnel and then bob cusimano is going to talk about the pc standards and how to use them in your contracts, particularly in commercial contracts to avoid or as it says to save your bacon and avoid catastrophe.
So I just want to touch base real quick right here. So we have the day is marketing. So I guess there are four. I was wrong, I thought there were three uh competitive slots per time, so there’s actually four that you have to choose between, it’s only an hour, so you kind of can’t really got to kind of commit to one. So there’s social media management kind of, what do you, you know that that’s a big push. It like once said if you want to pick a thing and you want to really, hey I wanna, I wanna really focus on social media for my painting company next year, you should probably think about going to that um cash flow if you don’t know your numbers, if you don’t feel like your company’s profitable enough.
That’s more obviously financial, but marketing and being able to charge higher, higher revenue for your projects obviously plays into that. Um and then we have commercial contracts and then uh, and then pre qualifying, right, what does it look like to pre qualify to make sure you don’t go meet with the wrong homeowners because the worst case scenario is you actually go and conduct an estimate. Don’t land the job. Are you landed unprofitable or bad job? That’s worse than just not getting the lead. So all four of those things are very different.
So you have to, you should be looking at this stuff as you’re painting company and you should be evaluating each of these and literally you should be circling it right? You should, I would print this out, I would circle and I would have kind of a road map and I would make a little road map and knowing that well, you can select it. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. It that’s amazing for the day, right? Yeah. What you don’t want is you’re there and you’re, you know, five minutes before you’re trying to pick it and then you got to try to find the room, then you’re 2100 minutes late because you didn’t figure out where the room, you don’t want that go into this, you’re gonna invest your time, your money, your resources coming to it, make sure you map out your plan here.
Yeah, that’s right. So then we finished marketing in the afternoon after we all eat lunch together. Um I love eating so there’s all that but then there’s lunch it’s gonna rock your world go back for a second. Um There so the afternoon Wednesday we have our fix my business commercial edition. So that’s kind of the one thing that’s not technically marketing but that’s okay. Um There’s only so much we could fit in and then the breakouts the non not to interject but while you’re on the commercial topic I really like that all the commercial events are highlighted in green.
So it’s really easy in the schedule. Yes we call. Yeah there’s throw up the link the link of the schedule here as well. Thank you for noting that chris yeah we really wanted to make a point that people could see um particularly those in commercial or interested in commercial. Be able to highlight that um or if you want nothing to do with it. Stay away stay away from green. Green green Green means go come on. Um So the break out the non panel breakouts in the afternoon are um getting recession proof Braden von from conquer is going to talk about how to thrive during a recession.
Um Jason paris and morgen Knox are going to do a panel on leveraging artificial intelligence doing 21 times more with half the headache and that is definitely a marketing heavy piece um with what they’re going to talk about in terms of automating systems, particularly customer communication, marketing language, all those pieces they’re going to talk about and that’s literally all I know about ai so I’m done. Then there’s a marketing guy from painter, marketing professionals. What is that? I think it’s painted painters go marketing or something. Yeah he’s going to he’s going to talk about growth but he’s really probably gonna talk about marketing.
So yeah, probably. So yeah, don’t go to that one. I didn’t realize I didn’t realize how stacked my competition was on that time slot. That’s no point. We gotta we gotta commercial panel. We got Jason paris. We gotta get recession proof, get five people come. But hopefully somebody comes. You guys, Yeah we’re gonna we’re gonna fill it up. All five of us will fit in there. It’s standing room only baby, Yep. And then we’re gonna end our afternoon with brain meld, which is our favorite thing where we all sit around tables.
I know we talked about this last time but there’s over 21300 tables with individual topics and an expert at each table. So you will get to sit down, you will see the topics on each table, you’ll get to pick a table, sit down, have a conversation with your peers led by an expert And then after about 2100 minutes a bell will ring and it’ll be like speed dating, you’ll stand up and you go to the next table, pick a topic, have a seat, have conversation and move on. Um it’s gonna be it’s gonna be a great time for you to get to know people, make sure you bring business cards because that’s a time people are tossing out, oh you use subs I need to use subs I need a sub agreement.
Can you email it to me or hey, you know you just started with this software, how are you liking it? I can’t quite figure out how to use it. Here’s my card, let’s talk. You know those logistical communication. I know there was an email sent out about this. I don’t know if there’s anything on the site. Do we have anything that actually lists out all the different brain male topics? I mean I have one publicly do anything publicly available for that. No, no, it’s a secret. I mean it’s not a secret over 231.
Over 5003. Yeah. So we kept the same, there’s only two brain meld. There’s two days that it happens and there’s multiple sessions within each day. Right? So even our bounce around tables within the hour four times. So in theory by the end of expo you should get to eight tables okay or you can just stay at table the entire time. Yeah people people people do that because it’s it’s not the same information. So the brain, well your networking kind of interactive, everyone’s at the table. It’s not the same as a breakout session where it’s kind of more your passive, you’re listening more to the information being presented to you brain melts interactive.
So that means if you if you really let’s say social media you really want to focus on social media and you’re at the table and there’s eight other people who came around painting companies. They’re all talking about what they do for social media. Get some great ideas like man that’s really great and then they leave and you stay and then another eight more people come. You probably get more ideas. So it’s it’s not a waste it’s not redundant to stay at the table more than once. But you should go through those topics.
I’ll tell you from from last year it’s a little chaotic. It’s a big room a bunch of a bunch of little uh tables with little thing in the middle of the sign that has it. So you you should have kind of some sort of a game plan otherwise it could be a deer in headlights and you might miss some topics that are pretty important to you. Um Cool Maggie. Sorry keep going. No after that Haley and I are gonna go to the women and paint Happy hour and have a cocktail and then Hailey and I are gonna carpool to the Benjamin moore event.
Actually it’s at the never mind. It’s there. We’ll walk together, we’re gonna go arm and arm. She just doesn’t know it yet. No they have not announced the events. It will be I know the bend more event. Well it’s published. So I can say that it’s at the hotel, which it normally is is off site, but they don’t ever tell us they’re the ones that put on a show And then some yes, yes, they do. Yes, they do. Nothing beats the magicians. Right. Was that was that in that was 2500?
That was Savannah Savannah. Right? Yes that was that one. Yes, that was one was phoenix, wasn’t it? My first one? My first one was in Galveston texas, but chris your first one was phoenix wright. So I had to skip Savannah. Gotcha. I lived in savannah for five years, so I was super disappointed. Yeah. One comment here, that was good, great advice. Find out what, what would benefit you most attend the classes and brain melt tables that help with that and talk with your influencers on who would be a great introduction to help you answer some of the questions you have.
So that’s cool talking about some more strategic networking to um, for people who listen to or or you follow that, you think would be able to help you or point you in the right direction. Don’t be afraid to ask. You know, everyone helping everyone and then someone else brought up a good point. Those veterans that have attended these before. If you see someone standing alone, that could be more introverted and anxious in these settings, go over and introduce yourself, break the ice a bit, You can change someone’s life.
So I think that applies to veterans and I think it really applies to anyone, you know, especially people coming for the first time. You know, painting is historically not the most collab of industries. It can be a bit jarring for people to come to this event. Maybe it’s their 2800st 240st time they’ve come in and sort of network with competitors of theirs. Um and that can be hard. So if you see people, I think we do, we have a are we doing like a special badge, what ended up being decided with that with the new Haley.
Um there will be like ribbons on the name tags. Um so the first time attendees um I believe we’ll have, I know they will have a color. There will be an identifier. Yes, you will be identified in a menacing way to point them out. Right way. Let’s see if I can swap for one of those just so I get more attention. That’s not a bad idea. I like that. That’s funny. Yeah, I know people, I think we will have ambassadors this year who will kind of be more pro.
Everyone’s gonna be be pro. You know, everyone’s always networking and very friendly and social, I mean it’s an awesome if you haven’t come just come. It’s just awesome. But it’s nothing to be afraid of, but we’ll have, we’ll have kind of brand ambassadors that will be a little bit more proactively making sure that people are having a great first experience and making sure to experience all the benefits of expo and the peace in general. All right Maggie, you finished one day, I gotta do more. Okay thursday’s leadership.
Um So as we said the afternoon is the trade show, so it’s gonna be an afternoon full of walking around with the vendors meeting, um meeting that whole community and then the Sherwin event is at night, so half the day is relaxing and fun. The morning after we eat breakfast, you know what we’re having for breakfast by the way. A buffet. Okay a lot of you are gonna get sold into details and stuff, you can get seconds all our beds that there will be like bacon, sausage, eggs and pancakes.
I love that we’re drilling down more on the food than know this, it was awesome in Orlando. So awesome. So good luck Albuquerque. So anyways, thursday um thursday morning we’ve got four breakout sessions uh just like every other time Tom Rieber is gonna kick off the morning with a large group presentation for everyone in the big ballroom and then we’ll go straight into brain meld. So that’ll actually kick off thursday morning Brain male conversation so you can sip on your coffee um and visit the last few rounds of tables that you kind of have mapped out, this is 45 minutes.
So you basically got to pick seven. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oops, that was morgan’s fault. Just kidding. So after after all that we have our breakout sessions. Our panel that morning is very similar to the ai session on Wednesday. But this is actually gonna be a panel discussion on artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and offshoring. So this is going to go as simple as ways to automate your business all the way up to how we’re using robotics and offshoring in our industry. So huge spectrum, awesome information, heavy hitting panel, very excited.
It’s got Jason paris leading it. So it’s just gonna be funny. Hopefully he doesn’t talk about excel all the time. Annie Newton, Ricky, Houghton, Brandon, juan, Oscar, Wimhurst and morgen Knox are on this panel. The three other breakouts, Benji Carlson from breakthrough academy is going to speak on scaling to five million. He’s going, we’ve got Jason phillips speaking on how he escaped contractor prison. So a little bit more about the leadership side and then Landon Long is going to speak on business secession. The title is you’ve just died.
What happens next? Not the most exciting but a super important component of owning a business is making sure that those bits and pieces are taken care of and that’s thursday. It’s not bad and then there’s uh there’s some sort of trade show show of trades and then like a party, I don’t know some kind of party. Yeah, it does say where the event is but I don’t know, I’m allowed to say that. So you have to go to that link that we put in there to figure out where the event is.
Um then the trade show will be from 11 30 to 4 and then the festivities, you know what everyone comes for, which Williams will be at 6 30 to 8003 to you know, T. P. D. For many people, someone here as a comment, I was a magician. Now you see it now you don’t with the old fashioned, I love old fashioned in there. I know who that was, who was it, my man, Mr mole. I know for a fact that’s that’s who made that comment, which I would like to argue that the relationship you have with him is a testament to this industry because last year at the Sherwin Williams event, what happened between you and chris mole?
Oh my gosh, which was the, oh so let me go, let me go a few years before that. So Arizona actually during the Sherwin Williams event is how I met chris, we were at the rodeo. Yeah, so yeah, he asked me to be the godfather of his child at this past one wow all because they met at a rodeo that Sherwin hosted all because pc expo if that’s not worth the $800 registration, I don’t know what is 100%. You know last time we kept hearing talk about nick about, you know, long life long friends and partnerships.
It’s very true. You know, we can pick up the phone and call someone if we have an issue, we will call someone, someone will call us and say, hey juan, this is what’s going on, Have you deal with this? We can take care of something really quick and this is through networking through P. C. A. So I got to tell you if you’re asking, should I go yes go again. We keep telling you just go like Nike says just do it right. That’s a great point. Your network and you learn all this stuff there.
But but you you go home with these contacts because you’re going to encounter problems, especially as you scale that maybe you don’t even know that you’re gonna have yet, you don’t have them currently, but they’re gonna come up and then you have sort of uh you make friends, right? You have kind of like the old fashioned Rolodex or whatnot, you have contacts with people that you’ve met that, you know, and you like and trust you say man, you know, I remember he’s at this point in his business and we kind of touched on this, but I bet he might have an answer to this, You can call them, you have sort of an unofficial coaching network, like a mentorship community, you can create for yourself.
That’s invaluable. Yes, it’s a super great point, Super great and you might get your you might get a godchild along the way. Who knows? That’s kind of a long time commitment. I don’t I don’t think the networking can be understated. I mean I just actually just before I jumped on here I had an hour conversation with someone in my market who I met at and we just we don’t get to see each other all the time, but we we we speak often um and typically ends up being an hour conversation, but again it’s just like those relationships.
Um So there’s obviously lessons to be learned from the sessions, especially if you’re going to it. Very intentional. I think it’s I think prior to going to the expo it’s really important to do a little reflection to really identify what you hope to get out of it and then be intentional why you’re there because again, even if you do take the 12 to the three things that you can take from it um and and immediately go implement them into your business or throughout the year, I think that that’s powerful in itself, but then when you build, when you layer in the relationships, I just called Matt Maggie’s husband last week or a week prior about a commercial project.
And um and yeah in get to see Maggie with our participation with the P. C. A. And um it’s just, yeah these relationships are incredible. So someone asked as an estimator are there any do not miss sessions for an estimator. I think definitely on day one getting into the whole um tom rivers talk about not wasting time on the wrong prospects. I think that’s I mean that’s something we talk about with our team all the time pre qualifying and ironing out that system. And then definitely I think estimators should dig into some of this ai stuff.
I think there’s um you don’t just have to be a business owner to want to utilize efficiency and programs that are out there for sure. And then man is an estimator really dig in at those brain melds to the unique topics because there’s all kinds of nici ones about Softwares and customer. I think one of them is even as detailed as texting etiquette with customers and you know just really finding the ones that are problem points for. You don’t go to the ones you’re good at, nobody needs, nobody needs that go to the ones where you’re struggling.
That’s why there’s an expert at the table. Yeah and they’re uh this is a slight tangent but I’m filming a whole podcast series with Jason phillips and and he had this structure. You know Jason, Jason is extremely uh extremely structured and awesome with his advice. And so I think I kinda hopefully I didn’t irritate him too much. We get along really well. I like Jason a lot. But one of the things he was saying with estimate, he’s like oh yeah we try to make sure we provide the estimate the kitchen table, not the porch.
So then I took him down about a 15 minute rabbit hole there where I don’t think he meant to go about like oh wow that’s interesting. How do you how do you get to the kitchen table and not do it at the porch? Okay. What’s your statistic close rate between the kitchen table and the porch. And then we got into like to decision makers versus one decision maker and all this is to say he’s he does this stuff from an S. O. P. For his business. But if you’re busy, most painting company owners don’t have the proficient set of SNPs that Jason phillips does.
So if you’re an estimator and you’re working for a company that doesn’t have it. 100% dialed in something like that, you can learn just sitting down hearing other people’s process. So you know, I found my clothes rate really improves when I say, hey I’m running these numbers, I’m gonna go ahead and finish this up. You mind if we just go ahead and step inside and I’ll finish running it all um you know, finish calculating and then I’ll run you through. Is that work for you and then stepping inside, seeing your close rate go up a lot.
So little tips and tricks and strategies like that can, you can get all kinds of stuff like that from just seeing how other people are doing it. That’s very true. That’s exactly what helped us, you know. And Jason phillips like I said I’ve met him three years ago or so and saying the awesome guy, super smart. I’ve had quite a few conversations with him and let me tell you you will learn a lot from that guy and he’s just like a really great human being man. Someone that you can just talk to for hours always laughing, Always happy.
So very direct. You’re not going to miss him with his shirts. This guy sneaker collection the other day. I was like yeah I gotta keep up now. Are those loud shirts how he ended up in contractor prison? Oh we’ll have to ask him. Oh well Maggie. Well this is an interesting question. Well we have a brain melt table for running a business. This would be a small deal here in an unpopulated area. Mm hmm. That is not a specific brain male topic. I bet there are topics that would, that would apply.
Yeah, I was just going to pull up the brain meld list. Hang on. That’s a great question. We should add that to the docket. That might be a good Well who’s going to let chris moore will lead it. Alright. Got it. Yeah, that can be uh unfortunately morgen. Uh She she nixed that one. We were gonna have it. But yeah, I’m not here to get a grip. Presentation would be a good one to address that? Okay. Oh man you know yeah there’s there’s enough and honestly I think no matter how big or how small your town is, if you just iron out all the things that are going to be presented to you and then if not then you find the tall dark haired british guy who’s loud and in charge in every room and you just dig into him because he’s got all those answers And I mean that he’s about to hit $1 million 1300 people.
So it’s amazing. Someone else said I’ll never miss another one. Another pc expo is life changing. It hasn’t only made me a better business owner and leader for my employee but it’s helped me be a better husband and father. I would love to get uh some follow up on that because that is pretty awesome. Um Maggie, can we get into friday? Yeah it’s gonna be an interesting state of affairs for everybody but let’s cover what it looks like. Guess how the day starts. Actually start that way for most people.
Every time I’m gonna eat breakfast. Like where’s Maggie at? Should be eating breakfast. You got to use the pan soak up your indulgences the night before. Um So friday is operations. So this is kind of you’ve learned a bunch of stuff now. How do we get going out in the world. So nick Slavic is going to kick us off in the morning as a big group with a little bit more about where we’re going from here with the P. C. A. And all of its initiatives, which are unbelievable for this year.
Then we’ve got our four sessions, our panel is on hiring and recruitment and that is led by Nick Slavic man, I really screwed him over on friday, You’re going to present to everyone and then lead a panel after Sherman’s event. Awesome. So we’ve got luke Reynolds, john Bryant Kyle, Campbell, Brandon Vaughn and brian johnson on that panel, just about the ins and outs of hiring and recruiting good people, both painters and leadership team. So not just hiring painters. Then we’ve got this couple from Nashville that runs a paint company, they’re going to talk about demystifying commercial painting.
So it’s going to be kind of a beginning to end on what it actually takes to run a commercial job, how to get it, how to sell it, how to run it and how to close it cooper cooper. Yeah, I think that’s how you say it. Yeah. Um then we’ve got a session from Madeline Mcrae on managing your team effectively. So management. Excellent, excellent techniques, wow, that was hard to say. And then Mark nelson from all of Holdings is going to talk about subcontractors, how to recruit them, how to retain them and how to grow your subcontractor base, then we break quickly and then we hop back into another round of sessions.
Our last panel session is going to be the fix my business residential. Then we’ve got brad Ellison from Ellison painting, talking about failing upwards. So it’s his journey of accidentally discovering where he’s supposed to be. Then we’ve got Chris, Elliot, the man, the legend. He’s going to talk on getting a grip on your business upgrading your operating system using E. O. S which is attraction system. I don’t know how many times my husband and I say, well chris does dot dot dot well we should try what chris does dot dot dot gold standard for operating But come to the session.
Oh I will. It’s not when I’m talking, I did that on purpose. 100%. And then we’ve got eric from Pathfinder marketing talking about the fast path to a million dollars. The science of converting leads to customers and then we close with the big old PC, a industry awards luncheon, which is another event that we skipped our first year. We got a flight home. Wanted to get back to see the kids thought the event was over after the last session and realized that the luncheon is so fun to be able to see.
They announced the awards for the year. There’s a big, just celebration of everything pc has done and everything everyone is involved in and we all give big hugs and kick it off for next year. Someone, someone did call you guys, the hottest pink couple in the world. I don’t know you’ve obviously never seen Emily Elliott got some some hot paint couples here. Um That was awesome, man. Thank you for that. Thank you for that run through. That sounded painless. Painless because we’ve been looking at it upside down and I have a special request.
Can I have a bloody mary bar at my session for you or for your participants? I mean, both friday morning. Well, I guess I’ll take the hair off the dog right now. I’m just trying to get, you know, competitive group to compete against. So, you know, trying to get I think every single one is competitive. Yeah, they’re all pretty, pretty brutal. Four at one time. Makes it makes it stiff. Yes, there were definitely some uh limitations with the rooms and such because we wanted to pack people we wanted it was either put rooms together or break them up and have them even smaller.
So we opted for. I think if offering too much value is our biggest problem with the expo, I think we’re doing okay. Yeah, exactly. That’s the leader of the marketing team right there. There you go. Alright, so if there are, if anyone else has any other questions, um, go through it, I’m gonna do so we we want to do a little plug here. I’m just gonna do it. Um, so I’ve launched a book, paying millions. Didn’t really launch, I launched it but it’s not not actually my book.
It’s it’s a collection, it’s an anthology of the second season of the pan american Mastermind podcast. So it’s actually juan’s book and Maggie book and chris’s book and about 31 other people’s book Jose’s book um matt’s book as well. So this is this is the book uh it’s it’s actually an amazon number one bestseller in contracting and number two for S. C. O. So that’s kind of wild and much appreciated by people who went out and bought it. But we will be giving away five of these. So I’m gonna be giving some there as well that’s kind of its own thing.
But for the next five people who register for expo who haven’t already registered. You have I’m gonna know you know coordinate with expo a lot and P. C. A. But if you haven’t registered and you register, email me Brandon at painter marketing pros dot com, let me know you heard this you just registered and I’m going to give you these books are $50. It’s a 500 page book. It’s a pretty I borrowed it if anyone knows um tim Ferriss he has a book tools of titans. It’s this anthology of all these these um interviews that he’s had things like 800 page book.
I have it it’s on my bookshelf. I love it and that’s where this idea came from. It’s just golden advice throughout a year From from over 40 interviews of painting company owners, we consolidate and put it into a book. So if you go, if you register for expo and email me and I check and you actually did register after this, after the time you heard this, then you’re gonna get a book at expo. So shameless, plug shameless bribe to you to come to expo Do you guys wanna wanna offer any other thoughts advice?
Anything else you want to say about this year’s expo? I know one thing we didn’t touch on, which which I kind of think we should maybe is this idea of focus groups? I don’t think it was their last year, it’s been that kind of historically, what is that Maggie, the focus group, you don’t know what is that really? So the focus group is, is another opportunity for vendors to present a specific topic so different than the brain melds in the sense that it’s more of like a targeted group um and then the vendors can present their their topic to like the audience that they’re looking for um primarily my understanding is that these will be promoted during the trade show and it’s kind of like an opportunity for all the exhibitors to be able to follow up with people that are interested.
Cool, Nice, cool. So yeah, that is a new thing. So there’s a lot going on this year’s expo is gonna be absolutely incredible. I’ve never been to new Mexico. So I’m very excited for that as well. Um Anyone else want to add anything before we wrap this up? I think it’s been really good. Well I actually want to say something real quick um as I mentioned in the beginning um I haven’t really trying to advocate more for our hispanic community, I do understand how powerful it is and how big it is, the force in our, in our industry.
So I I always want to tell my you know, hispanic community out there, come out there. Um It is hard, I know it’s our culture, it’s so many different things but expose yourself to the expo to other people, to other businesses and I think you’ll really, really enjoy what comes out of it or at least learn something new that I can tell my boys out there. I’ll see, I love it. Alright guys, well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Thank you Maggie want Haley chris thank you guys for coming, I really appreciate it.
Alright, you guys soon. See you. Bye bye. If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed in this podcast and how you can use them to grow your painting business, visit painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast for free training as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company again that you are l is painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast. Hey there. Painting company owners. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button, give us your feedback, let us know how we did.
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